TNAG-0892-FCO40-1102-Refugees-from-Vietnam-in-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-boat-people-1979 — Page 174

E/1979/95 page 37

196. In the health field, UNHCR, together with UNICEF, WHO and a number of voluntary agencies, provided various measures of assistance. Thus the Teknaf and Ukhiya hospitals were extended and the other health services in the camps improved by the provision of additional personnel, equipment and medicines. Six hundred tube wells vere sunk and water was transported to those camps without wells.

Burma

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197. Following the agreement reached, on 9 July 1978, between the Governments of Bangladesh and Burma which provided for the voluntary repatriation of the some 200,000 persons who had crossed into Bangladesh from the Arakan State between Harch and July 1978, the Government of Burma requested the High Commissioner to facilitate the repatriation and provide assistance to the returnees to enable them to attain self-sufficiency as early as possible. A UNHCR mission was then sent to Burma, subsequently followed by two others, to ascertain the nature and scope of humanitarian assistance required. After the first mission reported in August 1978, the High Commissioner agreed to provide the Government of Burma, in the initial stages, with a number of urgently needed items aimed at both assisting the returnees themselves and facilitating the task of the Government in this repatriation operation.

198. Ten reception camps were established along the Naaf River, and a number of transit camps were built in key areas to receive refugees. A UNHCR Chargé de Hission was assigned to Burma to assist the Government. The initial request for assistance was mainly for urgently needed items not readily available in Burma; and to provide the initial assistance, the High Commissioner made a first allocation of $400,000 under Special Programmes.

199. While in the early stages the rate of repatriation did not reach the number of 2,000 persons every three days anticipated under the Agreement, by mid-November the movement had begun to gain momentum and soon exceeded this rate. By the end of the year, more than 36,000 persons had been repatriated and assisted to return to their original homes, and the movement continued in 1979 at a rate of some 25,000 persons per month.

200. In 1978 an amount of $459,300 was spent on this operation under Special Programmes, and in order to obtain funds for 1979 the High Commissioner launched an appeal to the international community on 31 January 1979 for financial assistance in the amount of $7 million.

Hong Kong

201. Arrivals of Indo-Chinese refugees and displaced persons in Hong Kong rose from just over 1,000 during 1977 to 5,257 during 1978. Of this number, 1,851 persons departed during the year for resettlement abroad. These figures, however, do not include the 3,318 refugees and displaced persons from Viet Nam who arrived off Hong Kong on the ship "Huey Fong" in the last days of December 1978, and who were allowed to disembark the following month.